The Dream Painter
by Kamineko
Summary: This is a story I dedicate to my good friend Manfai and is about Scytale (yes, it is someone from the second book..:) and is a bit heretic (hope will not offense fans) but I wrote it mainly for Manfai, a true inspiration in weird perky thinking.


Dedication: to my very very very good and evil friend Manfai, who has nothing to do with this in fact, since he didn't even read the book (and he calls himself a Science Fiction reader!!:)). but still, this goes out to him I just wanted to make sure he doesn't boost himself up to a blow because I mentioned him.   
  
And to Jim Morrison who inspired me into this by writing an amazing epic short poem. Look it up in the "Eye" magazine in 1968.   
  
Warnings: none I think, the censorship should be working OK. If this is about Face Dancers... then... if you're young and sensible skip this and go to the nice fictions.  
  
Author's note: if you haven't read at least "Dune's Messiah" book in which Scytale appears then ...what can I say... read it, it is worth the effort. For those in here who have read all "Dune" books, I dare be a Herbert heretic, this means twist things as I please. I don't think he would mind being given he was such a free thinker.   
  
THE DREAM PAINTER   
  
My life? It all started with one wave of light piercing through my cells and then it ended. Their form was getting blurred and I probably started to loose shape from that moment on. I don't think this is the sort of thing your strictly shaped mind can absorb, but make an effort. Imagine! When a "natural" being is born it starts gaining shape till maturity is reached. However I was never a child. That would have been an "unfinished product". I was, and all other Face Dancers too, right from the start, ended and completed, ready to loose my shape. Is that evolution? I don't know, nor do I care. I couldn't possibly wish I were like you when I know for sure that I can be out and in the human form in matter of minutes. Or seconds. It depends on the model.   
  
That does not mean that the beginning memories are lost for me, or that I loose mine in order to gain other's. I recall quite precisely, and with much joy, the way the streets looked right after I walked out of... let's call it "birth room". Not quite appropriate I know. But it's the best I can do right now.   
They were all built in brick; pavements, walls, even benches. Earthly red rectangles and whitish lines, everything was like made out of pieces. It was magnificent. I don't remember much else, and unlike a human, I can be sure that if I don't remember then it wasn't there anything to worth being remembered. Just red bricks and very green plants coming out from behind fences (in brick too), piercing through the old pavement's rifts. I even remember all the Masters I saw that day and the other Face Dancers. All the details of their faces. I could not forget, you see, as I was made not to.   
It is funny how, back then, a single thought dominated my mind with probably the same clarity Masters' faith has. I thought this:" I wonder what the mirror will show me."   
I was not afraid thinking this, oh no. Maybe excited. Hm. Maybe not that either. I was simply curious. Do you know what is like to be able to be that detached towards a mirror? Don't nod, I know you don't. You can't! There is always something... hm... new the mirror shows. Even the lack of change. That is still something to consider.  
I propose you a game. Try watching your face till it you loose all feelings about it. Up to the point when you wonder: "Who is that person? I never met her or him before in my life." Yes, you can't meet yourself, ever. Maybe that is why looks are still so important to people. You watch others then you watch yourself and you scratch your mind figure out how others see you. And still, you are always wrong!!!  
  
I know about all this. Seeing myself... It is even ironic if you think about it. I see myself then I become myself. I can always choose and be different. I am more like those sorts of phenomena people call "something" rather than "somebody". Maybe it seems a degrading title. But I sense also the jealousy in it.   
  
I began, right after I had been issued to be an autocratic servant.   
How is that, you ask? Well, knowing that I am what I am, a multi-being creature, only existing to copy, I could not have been a Master. Not a Tleilaxu one at least. Those ones are being "chosen". I had been created to live so that I could serve.  
Oh you think you can understand this?   
No you don't. Though you might have served at one point in your life others' interests, being what I am is quite different. Because, you see, I am always someone else while remaining myself.   
None else can do such things; copy one's body and quickly learn how to act as them. My cells are in no form; therefore it is fair to say, I believe, that I have no form. That means I do not exist. Not in an obvious manner. Like you do. Look at your hands: they are yours, given to you, you can't change them into someone else's. You are a prisoner of form. I am not.  
  
That is why I call myself autocratic. I do have a lot of power. Solely over my form of existence, but that is a lot, don't you think?   
Can You do what I do?  
  
However, I am what I am because the Masters made me so. I was never the issue of a randomized creation such as you or your piers. I had no destiny to fulfill. Never had.   
I am all that I am not: someone else.  
  
I know you asked me to explain these things, my dear, and I have only made matters worse. But what can I do? I am a Face-Dancer. That is all. Whether it is a lot, or not, I don't care.  
You are probably wondering by now, that, if I am so all-powerful over my body as I said I am, then why do I choose my face to be mundane and insignificant so that you could easily overlook me? Oh now. What a silly question.   
I HAVE all beauty. There is no lovely face in this Universe that could not belong to me.   
I don't need human appraisal. Seeing them staring at me and admiring me. What would the purpose of this be? None. Attract whom? Human males? Human females? Other Face-Dancers?   
Oh well, maybe the need for that should have had to be an input in my cells right for the start if necessary. But it wasn't. I am a Tleilaxu toy, as many find fit to call me.   
I do not care one bit, because human life is parallel to me. I only extract the energy from it in order to exist.   
Without copying, I do not matter. And fortunately there can't be such a situation in which I could not copy someone. Anyone. I can always be Somebody.   
  
So why should I care about what you people think of me? I know that deep down inside you'd all want to have part of my power, still without the so-called disadvantages to it.  
You call me a freak because I have no gender; I have all genders. Why are you afraid, if not by fear of being drawn to someone who can be anyone at any time? What if, in a woman's form, as I make sex with some human man, I would issue from my body a huge elastic penis. How would that be? Oh freaky.... The monstrous Face Puppet tricking normal people to the ways of perversions.  
  
I am the traitor of all genders. You can't trap me into one. You know that now, so stop searching for situations in which, you as a human think I could find myself embarrassed or alone.   
We are never lonely, Face Dancers. We have the colony and ourselves. And also we have the Masters who treasure us and need us. We are their retainers but also we are masters of our own desire.  
  
What is that? You say you doubt my ability of tricking people into my play? You say many can see right through it? You think they can avoid it simply because they see it? Oh now, even if they do see I am a "fake"(do notice the quotations marks), so what?   
You humans are much too in love with what you see to be able to ignore my look. I hold a huge advantage. I hold the key to your submitting. You are all slaves of the small liquid-filled balls in your heads.   
You looove to see, don't you; if one does not see, he is useless, throw him away, no?  
And I can control what you see. Who knows? Maybe I only change the way light goes in your eyes and makes you dream. How can you tell if I am not God, making you see what I wish you to see? And then, if you scream, "I know you are not real" then what? Can you "wake" up and not see me anymore, or see me as my "true" self?  
  
Surely not.   
If I sit and think about it, you can think about the ways God is not real. He does not answer when he is being called; all things tend to happen randomly.  
But you can't see beyond me. Not really. Not with your eyes. I am here. Mind does not matter. Mind is changing, mind is not fleshy, mind does not reach orgasms all by itself.   
  
Oh look, I am beginning to sound as self-important as those Bene Gesserit girls: "Sex is power". Oh well, taken that as real, I think I could make the best impregnator of all. What an asset I could be for them. Imagine, during intercourse, I could look like my partner's all former lovers, the ones he/she lost as a child, including his/her parents. All suppressed wishes answered to. I would be hated but still so much more needed.   
Because I am the freak and I hold the key.   
They would become addicted to that "abnormal" way of melting all dirty obsessions and strong emotional scarves into one big wet and fleshy action.  
  
Oh let me hold your hand now; don't be so scared of this, nothing to it. Do you think that the act of doing is more sinful than the thought?   
Come come, why would that be so? Because you can see it?  
  
Oh... hm... who knows? You should, since you are human, I am a Tleilaxu toy.   
You couldn't resist me; that is for sure. From the moment you saw me in that big -outrageously kitschy by the way - hall you couldn't stop yourself.   
None told me to lure you but I could not resist the temptation. All people look over you, like you are least important. Some other kind of autocratic servant, like me, chained by love. Oh don't think your captivity is any nobler than mine!   
I knew you would have some sort of lost memories none cares about, because they are not "universal and vital" enough. It seems these days it is quite fashionable to be deep, and have concerns about the ^^greater^^ good. Just being selfish and admitiing it is wrong (read boring). They all swallow as much deep philosophy as they can get. And then throw it about all around like they discovered something new. I don't care about that. It is the Masters doing to care about such things. I rule the realm of light and flesh.   
So I just thought what if You could see all those you keep within? Right here, right now.   
Don't shy away and hide now. What would be the purpose of that? I am your father in any way you want me to be, dear Chani. What you see is what you get isn't it? Do you really want more?  
What for?  
  
I am more real than your dream phantasms. Look, look at me. Touch my skin. See how well I made all your words come to reality now. Every last thing you told me about your child love I am now. No, wait, look! I am not your father now. I am your little lost lover. Oh, he died. How sad. You were too small to love him then, but haven't you ever wondered how it would have been... what if... what if like...  
I make it all real, sweetheart. Don't need to be shy with me. Remember that I am the freak! The toy. The puppet. Why, an object simple and clear. It is not as if you are being lost in dreams. It is quite material and touchable.  
Isn't that nice now? Oh, you thought you are a stricter retainer then you now find out about yourself. Not so tight the cage is it? Not so sharp the bars. Not so dark the light.   
You can be a cheater and a traitor too. Doesn't it feel good?   
  
You have still dreams and hopes unknown if not even forgotten. You have something to hide. You are real, you are alive.   
I am just showing you all this. Who am I to you?   
Who else if not just you?   
Who else if not only your dreams?  
Look at yourself.   
You can be free.  
Look at me. 


End file.
